James Cotton was born into a Mississippi farming family in the middle of the summer, 1935. As the youngest of eight children, his prospects in the Tunica cotton fields held few opportunities beyond hauling water buckets for laborers or endless hours on a plantation tractor seat in the sweltering Delta sun.

Luther Tucker loved the blues. Born in Memphis in 1936 his path in life seemed pre-destined when he moved to Chicago in the early 1940s. His mother played piano and she would eventually introduce young Luther to some of Chicago’s most legendary bluesmen.

How does a person earn the nickname, Tomcat? The story goes that a girlfriend of Courtney’s in Waco, TX, who ran a little house out on the range, had just bought him a Cadillac. One day she got angry with him and chased him through the house with an axe! Yes, I said Axe! He jumped out one of the …